Day 1 - Hello

Hello. :)

I figured it's time to document my journey.  Whether it helps anyone or not, it's helping me to keep track of what I'm going through.  This first post may be long because I'm setting a precedent for myself.  I'm announcing my goals and what I want to accomplish and where I'd like to be in the next year.  I've always been a goal oriented person, going way back into my childhood.  However much I have tried to follow goal systems in the past, for some reason, they don't work for me as much as just following what I can to do track things and not stick to someone else's tools for me.  I set goals, I check in with where I am on a daily basis and that is what works for me.

Where to begin...

I love my life. I may not necessarily love myself at times, but I do love me life.  I have the most wonderful wife and two great step sons, who I consider to be my sons.  I think nothing makes me stronger than the love I feel from my family and the love I am able to give back to them.  While we battle with various aspects of life, persevere and come out triumphant every time, I never lose sight of the fact that we have a strong bond of love between us.  

In 1992, I began a journey of losing weight from my hefty frame of 335 pounds.  I succeeded in using Richard Simmons Deal-a-Meal diet along with his exercise routines from the various volumes of "Sweatin' to the Oldies".  While he is a great marketing legend and a lot of people (including himself) poke fun at him, he has helped millions of people get back in shape and lose the weight.  He helped me.  I'll post the article from my trek with Richard at the end of this post, so you can read and see some before and after pictures from that time period that appeared in his newsletter from 1995.  

I lost 135  pounds total and then made another 20 pound plunge from switching to a vegetarian lifestyle in 1994.   Which was a hard choice to make and eventually I made the switch back to omnivore in 1998, due to lack of quick foods for busy lifestyle at the time.  I was exercising every day.  Walking and hiking for double digit miles on the weekend and feeling the best I ever have in my life.  I had quit smoking in 1991 and dropped all the weight I had wanted to, by the middle of 1994.  I was 180 pounds.  This was WAY too skinny for my frame.  You could see my hip bones sticking out of my side while I stretched into size 34 jeans.  I eventually worked my weight back up to 195/200 pounds in 1995 and sat there comfortably till I got involved with a Blues Brother act named The Bruise Brothers in 1996 (but that's a story for another time).  I put on weight for the Bruise Brothers and rested at the 235/240 weight for the duration of performing.  I had picked up smoking again in 1995 after battling depression, divorce and getting into a scary car accident.  I was back on the road to destruction of my health once again.

In 1999, my body had a meltdown of sorts.  I had heart palpitations after performing in the BB act at a country club and bowed out of ever performing in this act ever again.  Since I was less active during the 1999 to 2003 years, I shot back up to 265 pounds.   I was lazy and falling back into old patterns.  I needed a drug of sorts, and it was food and wine.  I broke free for a while when I got hooked into a relationship that was probably more psychologically damaging than anything else.  I clung to something that wasn't there and tried to sugar coat it with the word "friendship" which all it was, was a spiral downward.  While spiraling, I realized that I wanted more for myself so I started to separate slowly from the source of the problem and cut drinking out (even though I was smoking again from the depression of the relationship).  

I decided to try dating again, but was not having any luck finding anyone that matched.  I was sent on blind dates by friends who were setting me up with nightmarish women.  I then decided to try Match.com.  Why?  Because I had friends who had great results with Match.  After a few failed dates, I let the account sit, until January of 2005.  That is when my wife-to-be had popped up in an email from Match's "best matches" email of the day.  We made contact and a short pause in the infancy of our emails to each other, we were off and dating.  I had never been with someone I have felt such a great connection with, in my life.  We married in 2006 and I have been extremely happy ever since.  At the time both of us smoked the same brand of cigarettes.  Our consumption was around 5 packs a day between us, depending on the day of the week and any stressful things that were occurring for us.  That was expensive and unhealthy.  We decided to quit in 2008 and have never looked back.  When we quit, the weight came on faster than we expected it too.  At the time I struggled between 255 and 265 with very little exercise.  Within a year I was up 60 pounds to 320.  A year later I was sitting at 380 pounds.  So uncomfortable that I hurt when I slept and I started to feel like I was having sleeping issues.  I couldn't even bend over to tie my shoes.  

In 2011 I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and have slept with a CPAP machine every night.  I have more energy in my body now than I've had in my life.  I have probably been this way since I was in my early twenties.  On the road to this diagnosis, I started to cut back on high glycemic foods in 2009 and lost down to 330 pounds where I stayed until September 2011 when I had a sever attack of GERD.  My doctor put me on Omeprazole and a strict diet of no caffeine, no soda, no citric acid and no sugar.  Not the easiest thing to give all that up in one pass, but I did.  Plus I needed to drop weight when I got the "pre-diabetes" diagnosis a month later.  We both got on the calorie counting bandwagon and started to walk more and workout more and drop the weight.  I got down to 299 pounds by February of 2012 and was on the right track when we all of a sudden, it came to a halt and I got off the diet.  I have since put the weight back on to 325 pounds and am not feeling well again.  My blood sugar has climbed, but is not serious yet.  

So here I am, ready to commit again, in a different way.  Ready to get healthy and bring myself back into balance.  This time I'm ready.  It was like the smoking cessation that we did back in 2008.  It was time.  You just get fed up.  Case in point, Labor Day 2012.  My beautiful wife and I, decided to go on a little spontaneous trip after we ate lunch.  We ended up at the beach in Winnetka off of Tower Rd.  We parked at the top of the hill and walked down the stairs to the bottom and onto the beach.  When we got there, we walked in the sand to the water and stood there enjoying the waves and the cold water as it lapped at our feet.  The walk through the sand was strenuous for me. I was out of breath and my heart was racing.  When we finished, we had to walk through the sand but the worst part was coming up before us; the long winding walk up the stairs to the car.  I had to pause and catch my breath and slow down my heart rate at least 3 times before we reached the car.  I hadn't felt that out of control and sad in a very long time, about my weight, body and situation.  I sat there the rest of the day and fed upon it by eating too much and then having a few glasses of wine.  I just wanted to numb out and forget what was happening to me.  Why had I let this happen to me?  All I need to do is to bring in my lunch, starting eating healthier and stop all the bullshit eating that I've been doing.  "Put down the fork Dave!" is all I keep hearing in my mind.  The day I write this, is the day after Labor Day.  I got up this morning and shook it off and said, "enough of this."  Its now the time to go there. Its now the time to put together my manifesto for a healthier life.  

I want to live.  Standing at the beach yesterday it hit me.  I want to go on journeys with my wife, where we can hike in the mountains, run the beaches of the world, enjoy the nightlife, dance, swim, run and just enjoy life with each other.  That's what I want for us.  To be happy and healthy and loving life and to share adventures together.  So I am taking these first steps of the equation for myself.  Putting the fork down and turning to taking care of my diet so that I can get this weight off and be healthy one again. 

Join me on this journey.  I'll share some funny stories from my past to my present that cater from food stories, to woes in the gym, to some philosophical diatribes that I might have reeling around inside my head.  I do have deep thoughts from time to time, so now is the time to share them.  

On all my forums, social sites, music sites and profile pages I've always had this description of who I am.  "I'm a programmer by day; family man, musician, writer, artist, photographer and videographer by night."  Now is the time to add something to that mix.  "I'm a healthy person who is a programmer by day...."  This is where my mindset needs to change.

Namaste

Dave


Richard Simmons Newsletter from 1995